Back in 1974 all it took to make a film like Ankur was five lakh rupees and a whole lot of conviction. Though Shyam Benegal had made dozens of documentaries and ad films before Ankur, this was his first outing as a filmmaker. It was Shabana Azmi’s debut as a lead actress. But she wasn’t Benegal’s first choice. Names like Waheeda Rehman had turned down the film before. Reportedly, Benegal found Azmi to be too pretty for the role of a gullible village girl. But Shabana Azmi announced herself with a performance that drove Ankur’s dramatic parts with great effect. So much so, that even the international press and reviewers referred to Azmi as ‘one of the finest actresses in India’. Benegal’s social drama criticised social class and hierarchy as well as touched upon themes of adultery and sexual frustration. For a heavy-handed subject like that to earn a crore in ticket sales meant parallel cinema had found its calling card.DID YOU KNOW?

Ankur uses Dakhani language, a variant of standard Hindi-Urdu which is mostly spoken in Southern India